So the most likely outcome here is that sometime between now and Friday at 4pm, Trump announces a new deal and memory holes this, but, like, tail-risk outcome that the global economy implodes and we all lose our shirts. Which is neat.

The Iran War is now a fight between the US and Iran over which one of them gets to commit international piracy on the Strait of Hormuz.

There's a term for when you set up a "protection" scheme where it wasn't needed before and then demand money for it

Maersk crew

Can we expect American piracy if countries refuse to pay? Can we look forward to every other country overseeing a maritime trade route do the same? Stay tuned!

Trump launches a protection racket in the Strait of Hormuz and has literally no way of enforcing his criminal endeavour.

Today in Iran War nonsense, Trump said the U.S. military will become the “guardians of the Strait” and collect fees for running Hormuz. Here are some other opinions he’s held about that over the last few months.

We should never take these people seriously when they talk about "free speech on campus," ever again.

Authorities say ICE shot and killed a person this morning in Maine. www.wmtw.com/article/signific...

this is inclusive of “hegseth cares more about his 1950s aesthetics than a functional and competent armed forces”

this is “pete hegseth wants an all-white military”

Reform and their supporters now trying to reframe all journalistic scrutiny of them as being dangerous political attacks, bordering on terrorism. A preview of what we could expect from a Reform government

Ah, well

So Tennessee's governor can invade Memphis but Kentucky's governor can't go find out if their senator is alive? @govandybeshear.bsky.social

He thinks “eleventh hour” is “eleven hours” LOL

Things the President says used to move markets, now they barely move the trending tabs on microblogging sites.

Do you know how much damage you have to do to the US presidency to reach a point where the Commander and Chief of the US Armed Forces can announce they're going to occupy and charge protection fees on a critical maritime strait and everyone is like, "Haha, yeah ok. Sure you are Mr Grumpy Pants!"

This is just more of Trump’s “I’m rubber, you’re glue” nonsense. He’s done it with fraud, fake news, and now he’s doing it with the Strait. It’s what he does when he knows he doesn’t have an answer but still needs to counter, it’s a sure sign he’s got nothing.

Note from my notebook from 2016 which I find has only grown in pertinence in the intervening decade.

The polar opposite reactions here to the deaths of Sam Neill and Lindsey Graham are such a reminder that we all have a choice whether to live our lives in a way that brings joy or misery to those around us. I think if you’re remembered fondly as Sam Neill is today, you’ve pretty much won at life.

Everyone: There's a real risk that, if he's not careful, Nigel Farage could end up arguing with a bin Dan Hannan: Here's a two-page spread in which I argue with a bin

The Trump-created rising prices crisis has made beef the most shop-lifted item in some US stores, the NYT The Daily podcast reveals.

No shit.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has called on JPMorgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon to say whether he lobbied the UK government against a tax on bankers’ bonuses on the advice of child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein www.ft.com/content/4f49...

New in PN: Lindsey Graham and the rot of modern conservatism "Graham died a coward. From Gingrich to Trump, he embodied the movement-to-racket transformation of the GOP. Has America ever seen a capitulation so self-abnegating as his conversion from snarling Trump critic into swooning cheerleader?"

The Strait of Hormuz is open

Ouch...

ICYMI

this is also very good www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/u...

I thought Dan Hannan’s analysis of Count Binface’s manifesto was another spoof by @ottoenglish.bsky.social But it’s genuine. Genuine comedy. Pure gold

The Times isn’t going to back down until Farage is gone.

The Times might be going off Farage. 'A vehicle for chaos'.

Don’t know who to credit for this. But it is how I feel.

The scriptwriters have really, really gotten out of control this season

Ty Cobb: “[Donald Trump] is crazy. He is a malignant narcissist, he’s demented. It’s all about self-enrichment. I spent hours and hours in the Oval working through things with him. It’s much worse now”

“We have a weird machine which uses language exactly like a human, ‘thinks’ sorta like a human (maybe), and does not reason like a human at all, but which is easily capable of solving problems humans do think and reason about” is The Most Interesting Question Ever for a half-dozen different fields!

this is the perfect use of axios’s bullet point house style

You just know Joe Biden's gonna outlive them all

Lindsay died to cover up the fact that they won't say if McConnell is alive to confirm whether Iran has been totally defeated which keeps you from asking about the Epstien files.

Mitch McConnell's statement today on the passing of his colleague Lindsey Graham: . . . . . .

Lamentation (flipped, detail), by Gerard David, 1515-23, 📸 by Roberto Schmidt

I know we’re all used to Trump saying preposterous things because his brain is made of pudding, but it’s worth emphasizing that in a democracy, no one is scheduled to win. Quite the contrary. He was up for re-election in a red state, but the outcome is up to the electorate.

Intended or not: ♦️This is one of the best roasts of #LindseyGraham of the past 24 hours:

"Oh, I know from personal experience this man was capable of great compassion, wisdom and empathy even though he never chose to demonstrate any of these qualities when doing his very important job that impacts millions of people." That's worse, right? You get how that's worse?

Stunning from 🇺🇦 : a country without a functioning navy. “Russia has been forced to suspend shipping in the Sea of Azov after 90 vessels were targeted by 🇺🇦 drones in less than a week.” Ukraine’s drone forces chief, Brovdi, said on Sunday that his units had hit 10 tankers & 4 ferries overnight.”

The boring reason senators are putting out anodyne statements on Graham is that if they don’t that will be a story and it’s not the story they want

I’ll write more later, but this is the defining Lindsey Graham moment for me. Screaming into a mic to defend a Republican Supreme Court nominee against allegations of sexual assault, all in the hopes that Mister Trump would watch on TV and tweet something nice about him. That’s Graham’s legacy.

No statement from Mitch McConnell on the sudden passing of his senate colleague? So much for decorum